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PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS, 5 
on inconclusive evidence, may after all, in some form or other, have 
really happened. Thus the old theological bitterness is mitigated, and 
a temporising policy is either advocated or instinctively adopted. 
To illustrate the nature of the fundamental scientific or philosophic 
controversies to which I do refer, would require almost as many 
addresses as there are Sections of the British Association, or at any 
rate as many as there are chief cities in Australia; and perhaps my 
successor in the Chair will continue the theme; but, to exhibit my 
meaning very briefly, I may cite the kind of dominating controversies 
now extant, employing as far as possible only a single word in each 
case so as to emphasise the necessary brevitygand insufficiency of the 
reference. 
In Physiology the conflict ranges round Vitalism. (My immediate 
predecessor dealt with the subject at Dundee.) 
In Chemistry the debate concerns Atomic siructure. (My pen- 
ultimate predecessor is well aware of pugnacity in that region.) 
In Biology the dispute is on the laws of Inheritance. (My 
nominated successor is likely to deal with this subject; probably 
in a way not deficient in liveliness.) 
And besides these major controversies, debate is active in other 
sections :— 
In Education, Curricula generally are being overhauled or funda- 
mentally criticised, and revolutionary ideas are promulgated 
concerning the advantages of freedom for infants. 
In Economic and Political Science, or Sociology, what is there 
that is not under discussion? Not property alone, nor land 
alone, but everything,—back to the Garden of Eden and the inter- 
relations of men and women. 
Lastly, in the vast group of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 
‘ slurred over rather than summed up as Section A,’ present-day 
scepticism concerns what, if I had to express it in one word, | 
should call Continuity. The full meaning of this term will 
hardly be intelligible without explanation, and I shall discuss 
ib presently. 
Still more fundamental and deep-rooted than any of these sectional 
debates, however, a critical examination of scientific foundations gene- 
rally is going on; and a kind of philosophic scepticism is in the 
ascendant, resulting in a mistrust of purely intellectual processes and 
in a recognition of the limited scope of science. 
For science is undoubtedly an affair of the intellect, it examines 
everything in the cold light of reason; and that is its strength. It is 
a commonplace to say that science must have no likes or dislikes, must 
aim only at truth; or as Bertrand Russell well puts it :— 
‘The kernel of the scientific outlook is the refusal to regard 
